SQL incremental would work if SQL databases would be set in transaction logs mode else even if you set it incremental, it will take a FULL backup.

The only starneg thing is second part: Last backup was not created using NMSQL module. Is anyone running manual SQL backups? It could also be that it is not writing indexes properly and therefore it is not able to read its own databases for the last backup.

What is the status of backups in Networker and are you able to recover databases through Networker?

Hello,

Yes, I can restore the databases and the backups run successfully. However, they run fulls every night. I do not see anything in the SQL History logs regarding other Backups. How do I ensure that the Databases are set in Transaction Logs mode?

Thank you,

Last time I've seen this was when SQL admins were also doing their dumps and did get recorded somewhere thus module knew last backup was not done by itself. To preserve log consistency full backup is performed then.

Could you please tell me a little more about these "dumps" as this very well could be what is happening.

Thanks!

Within SQL you can schedule (or do it manually) dumps of database and if admin did it this may interfere with 3rd party backups. With newer systems, VSS could trigger backup too I believe.

Ok, I think I found the problem. It appears that the file level backup I do on the server at night is recording a log in the transaction log of SQL server which then screws up the SQL backup. How do I completely exclude all SQL file types from being included in the file level backup? I already have a MSSQL Exclude directive which skips .ldf and .mdf files, but are there more I must skip? Is there a guide to do this? I'm pretty positive this is what is causing the issue.

Thanks!

Well, if you get this every day then try to skip file system backup for one day to confirm if this is really an issue or not.

I have just confirmed that this is indeed the problem. How do I exclude SQL files from being backed up during my file level backup? Here is the directive that I am using:
<< "C:\" >>
+skip: *.ldf *.LDF *.mdf *.MDF *.ndf *.NDF
+aes: *.*
+compressasm: .

<<"C:\i386">>
+skip:.?**

<< "D:\" >>
+skip: *.ldf *.LDF *.mdf *.MDF *.ndf *.NDF
+aes: *.*
+compressasm: .

<< / >>
+skip: *.ldf *.LDF *.mdf *.MDF *.ndf *.NDF
+aes: *.*
+compressasm: .

Thank you!

I'm not sure what exactly is used by MS SQL so I really can't say exactly. I do know that newer releases of client for some reason would trigger MSDEWriter which might stand in the way (and may seem as SQL backup to application then). Not sure if this is addressed in latest releases (I know for a fact that with 7.2.2 client this is not the case).

It appears the my problem was in the way the directive was setup. I needed to have:
<< / >>
+skip: *.ldf
+skip: *.mdf
+skip: *.ndf
+skip: *.MDF
+skip: *.LDF
+skip: *.NDF
+aes: *.*
+compressasm: .

at the top of the directive rather than <<"C:\">> and so on.

Thanks to all for your help!